


Sight of Smoke

by foolhardy



Series: Finding Luke verse [4]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Beru is BAMF, But also not a god, Gen, I was just going to write him out, Leia is Confused, Obi-wan needs and intervention, Owen is also BAMF, but he has turned into sad comic relief, but is a perfectionist and so is disappointed she did not kill all the people, he is a farmer, he is stolid and dependable, not as BAMF as Beru, she totaly kills multiple people in this, the universe ought never to find out what such people are driven to when distraught
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-01
Updated: 2020-08-01
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:00:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,405
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25646197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foolhardy/pseuds/foolhardy
Summary: She was mending the roof, it was not a task that she would bring her spare battery pack for - it being just one floor beneath her feet. That would teach her to be more paranoid in future. If she had a future. And they would regret it if she had.
Relationships: Leia Organa & Luke Skywalker, Obi-wan & alcoholism, Owen Lars/Beru Whitesun
Series: Finding Luke verse [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/777354
Comments: 3
Kudos: 41





	Sight of Smoke

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos to Fialleril for their expansion of Tatooine culture and in particular for Ekkreth who tricks Depur.

They came out of a morning sky bright sky, and there was no time to hide, to run and her phaser only had the charge to kill a man, not take out a ship. Well, maybe a very small ship. And this was not. 

If she'd had any warning she would have grabbed a spare phaser pack. Or thrown Lukka over the back of the speeder and made a run for it. Or taken the spare rifle. Or anything. But she hadn't had any warning. Not even a notion of it. She'd kissed Owen goodbye that morning with perfunctory affection and set about checking the roof. With the homestead sunk into the ground it was a morning's work to do and so Lukka was up there too. They each had a pail of pourstone ready to patch up what the heat of the sun and wear of the wind had done. 

It was work Luuka had done every year since they had trusted his balance so close to the edge of their home-crater. He padded about eyes on the roof but his thoughts on school that afternoon. He chatted away, excited for a lesson on maths, more for the teacher than the subject which he professed was 'dry as a needle-rat at noon'.

Pushing away the thought of desiccated little bodies, Beru stooped to prod at a flaking section of roof. "Where did you learn that one?" She asked expecting the answer. 

"Biggs!" Her Lukka chirped. 

It was no more than she had expected and while she could have wished that Lukka had more friends she understood why not. There had been a little trouble when he had first started school two years ago, Skywalker being a slave name. Lukka had borne it well and after one rather nasty fight had come away with a split lip and one hell of a black eye and the news that now no-one would dare to call him slave-born. Beru had restrained herself from scolding in worry over the injury and simply promised herself to keep telling the stories so Lukka would know that there was no shame in being slave-born. That had been two years ago and with the ingenuity of children, the bullies had found other ways to torment her Lukka. 'Wormie' was the name that had stuck, Lukka hadn't minded it at first and his complacence had encouraged its use until most of the freeborn-children had called him the epithet. 

Biggs, of course, never did. He liked Lukka had been raised to always call a thing by its right name. Biggs as she well knew, was her Lukka's best friend. 

Beru finished laying on the fresh pourstone and continued her inspection of the roof. "Do you know a story of the needle-rat?" She asked in the other language. Lukka denied it, but with a grin. Beru smiled at his blatant lie but called to mind the first lines of the story. It was one of the simpler tales and rather silly. "One day as Ekkreth was walking through the desert, he--" 

She stopped, the whine of engines on the edge of her hearing. 

She stood, letting the pail down and swept her eyes along the horizon turning a full circle. 

Nothing. 

She turned again. The whine increased to perfect audibility and she looked up. A ship was stooping directly above. "Inside!" Lukka needed no telling he left his pail of pourstone and was slipping over the side of the roof in a second. But there wasn't any time, the ship spun landing; four, no five beings jumped out. Beru brought her phaser to bear and shot one square in the chest. The Rodian staggered but his armour had taken the shot, he kept on coming until her next shot took him in the face. Beru cursed herself and her foolish freeborn parents. She shot again. 

So close to home Beru had only her old phaser clutched, battery spent, in her hand. It was a mistake so unforgivable that the last thing she heard before their stun-sticks struck was her freed-woman grandmother scolding her. 

The only difference between freeborn and slave was where they were when Depur came calling. 

\---

Getting the milk was the trick. Or it had been. Now-a-days the local heard was practically tame. There was no longer any sense of triumph for having infiltrated the Bantha or for getting away with a large Bantha-warm haul or milk. He'd felt triumph the first time he'd managed to ferment it without giving himself food poisoning too. But that was just part of his routine now. The fermenting. Not the food poisoning. 

Today Obi-wan sat by the Bantha-cow in no rush to fill the milk-container (as he had dubbed the battered thing). The sun was already scorching and it was still what the locals called the 'cool of the morning'. A truly ironic phrase for a planet that was never cold not even at night. In the first years Obi-wan had been here he'd been sure that some property of the atmosphere only allowed the transmission of heat into the planet not out of it. It had been maddeningly hot. Now eight years alter he was resigned to it. More out of being unable to summon up the energy to dislike it than out of acceptance. 

Eight years. Such a long time. And yet, it felt so... Obi-wan shook his head. So horribly recent. He swallowed, his dry throat feeling scratchy with sand and he heroically resisted the urge to rub at his eyes. A lifelong habit broken by the sands of Tatooine. Tatooine had a reputation for breaking things. 

Think of milk he told himself. Milk was a good wholesome food and he could ferment it and keep the results through the coming hot season when the Bantha would migrate. 

After another moment he stirred himself. 

The milk-container was heavy, or it might just be his arms. With a surge of despair he felt tears spring to his eyes and feeling ridiculous blinked them away. It was just that he hadn't eaten breakfast that morning, that was all there was too it. He dragged the back over to the complacent Bantha-cow and ducked under her bulk. 

And miles across the salt-flats an eight-year-old boy cried out in terror and was silent.

\---

Leia woke up slowly at first, she felt a little queasy. After a long moment she shifted unhappily and only then did she notice her pillow was wet. The cold tears chilling where her head had moved. A sob pressed on her throat and Leia wrapped her arms tightly around herself and squeezed. Her fingers digging into ribs until the sob was forced back behind gritted teeth. What was this? She could not even remember whatever dream had upset her. 

The anger helped, but the sadness stayed. And so did the fear. 

For a long while Leia lay still trying to go back to sleep. But her eyes were wide open and her heart beat fast in her thin chest. In her mind she planned her next move, mentally preparing herself to face both cold flagstones and the speculative looks of the staff. 

She did it, slippers defended her against the cold floor and a cheerful smile countered the obvious tear stains on her cheeks. Her parents' room was not so very far away. She directed the fixed smile at Deltav before wordlessly slipping past the guard into the dark of her parents' suit. Not for years had she wished her own room was still attached to theirs. Deltav's pity was enough to turn the longing into fury though and with this brace, she made it to her parents' bed and wiggled her way under their covers. Only then did her small anger desert her and the horror of her nightmare send her reeling back into tears. 

\---

The last time Leia had joined them was in the early morning of her eighth life-day. Waking well before dawn to their sobbing daughter was disconcerting. The only coherent thing she would say was "Nightmare" so Bail coxed her to snuggle between them and with quiet endearments soothed her back to sleep. It must have been some nightmare, for she had not run to them since shortly after she had moved into her own set of rooms. 

"Did you hear the details?" Bail asked his wife and Queen. He could barely make out her face in the gloom. 

"Bail, really. She had a bad nightmare. These things happen and I am glad she came to us for comfort." Breha murmured running a hand over their daughter's dark hair. "Don't spend the rest of the night gnawing on it." She advised and then shifted back onto her pillow. 

It was good advice, "but, what if." He remembered the Jedi and their strange powers. Some of them, he did not even think the name, had seen visions. 

"No." Groaned his wife. "Just no. We are not waking her and asking for details. It can wait till morning and even if it can't it will. I have cabinet first thing and if I don't get back to sleep I shall have to order all of them to the guillotine or gallows or whatever and that would be a pity because I'm rather fond of at least half of them. Or I should be at any rate."

Bail made an agreeing sound, but he did not agree. He would wait and try for details from Leia in the morning. So he lay listening as Breha shifted less and less and Leia's breathing deepened. He did not notice when his own eyes slid closed, but it was a light and anxious sleep that brought him through the night till morning. 

He woke reluctantly to a tired-eyed daughter and wife in Queen mode. "No time," his wife waved him off and vanished to her dressing room where attendants waited to rush her through the daily chore of looking like a Queen. Leia did not rush off, despite, Bail knew, having tutors lined up for the day. Wrapping fond arms around his daughter he pulled her onto his lap. 

"Beloved," he started his voice taking on the hill-country accent with his switch to Raanu, "you've been very quiet this morning." He felt his daughter press her face into his neck, and couldn't help the smile as he kissed the top of her head. "You see?" He laughed at her. "Now, won't you look at me. I'd like to see you. There now, may I have a smile if you're not going to wish me a good morning?" It was a wobbly thing and Bail curled around his Leia. "How can I help?" She shook her head, he shushed her rocking gently as she blinked away tears. 

"I don't" Bail ceases his rocking as if his stillness would help her continue. "I don't remember it. I woke up crying and my tummy hurts and I feel cold and scared and I don't know why." Her teeth snapped shut and Bail could see the muscles around her jaw clench tight. Against tears or pain. He resisted the urge to lunge to the comm and get the palace doctors running to his daughter's side. No, he calmed himself, that would not be wise, better to go to them and not to be seen rushing. 

\---

There was a haze on the horizon. Owen's eyes locked onto the blemish and he knew in the wet centres of his bones that it was his farm. That it was smoke. Still, he drove on, faster now, and as he approached he wished the fire on another, any other family. He was a practical man, not a selfless one and he burned fuel to bring his speeder to top speed. It must not be his farm. 

And yet, it was. 

He drew up in the usual place, turned off the engine and his hands moved thoughtlessly to set the thief-locks. His feet touched sand and he walked down into the smoky air, it was not thick, the fire had already run out of fuel. Now smouldering and starving it didn't even need the CO2 canister that had found its way into his ever practical hands. His throat felt raw from smoke and shouting. His ears seeming deaf to the crunch of debris underfoot, yet straining to hear his wife's voice, his nephew's call. 

He stopped outside again, standing by the entry dome, a tipped over bucket. The spilt pourstone was already dried hard to the roof cementing the bucket in place. It didn't budge to his dull kick and he saw, there, by his feet, a rusty stain. It was not much, but that was little comfort. They were gone. They'd been taken and he hadn't been here.

It was easy to reach the sand his fingers brushing the rust-coated grains even as more blew against his side. Keeling there in the sand he felt like letting the grains pile up until they covered him. Until the suns leeched all water from his bones and the Tuskan made tools of them. 

It would be a stupid thing to do.

Owen levered himself up, he scrambled atop the dome and turned looking for anything, and yes, there it was. A new divot in the ever-changing landscape, but one that had not been there this morning. A ship blast off. So they had come and gone by air. Not locals then. 

The suns were already sinking, but Baron Huff would still be awake. That bastard. Owen was going to make his year. Huff had been trying to pry the Lars off their land since Owen could remember. It was almost... But no. Even a slemo like Huff wouldn't. No. Still Huff wasn't a total bastard, he'd pay good and proper for the farm. Else Owen would sell it to the kriffing Hutts! That would be poetic - use slavers money to find slave-snatchers! Owen smiled unaware of how the curve of his mouth pulled the set lines of his weathered face into a ghastly grimace. It wouldn't do though, however poetic, dealing with Hutts could only bring trouble. And he was well past his limit for trouble. 

Owen threw his scavengings into the speeder and gunned the ignition. The wobbly hover coils lifted. Owen sped away from the only home he'd ever known. He didn't look back. It was nothing to him without its people.

**Author's Note:**

> ...and so Owen's hunt begins, we start his counter: 0y, 0m, 0d
> 
> Anyone want to hazard how long I researched how much Tatooine cash it costs to buy a moisture-farm before giving up and just ending the bloody chapter? This is why we don't meet Huff. Not that I care for him anyway, but still.


End file.
